Universal Soldier (Greatest Hits Live: Vancouver 1986 Version)
Music and lyrics by Buffy Sainte-Marie
When I first came to this land, this North American land, I was invited to play at the Newport Folk Festival by Miss Joan Baez. I was listening to Joaney, I was listening to Judy Collins, but there was a Canadian-American-Indian girl, and she wrote some heavy songs. I recorded one of them, it was originally about the Vietnam war, but it means the same thing now. And it goes like...
He's five foot-two
And he's six feet-four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of thirty-one
And he's only seventeen
He's been a soldier for a thousand years
He's a Catholic, a Hindu
An Atheist, a Jain
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
And he knows he shouldn't kill
And he knows he always will
Kill you for me, my friend, and me for you
And he's fighting for Canada
He's fighting for France
He's fighting for the USA
And he's fighting for the Russians
And he's fighting for Japan
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way
And he's fighting for Democracy
He's fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of us all
He's the one who must decide
Who's to live and who's to die
And he never sees the writing on the wall
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war
And without him all this killing can't go on
He's the Universal Soldier
And he really is to blame
And without him all this killing can't go on
He's the Universal Soldier
And he really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from here and there, and you and me
And brothers, can't you see?
This is not the way we put the end to war
Thank you! Buffy Sainte-Marie! |
